


Sky

by Xenamorph



Series: After the War [1]
Category: Wizard101 (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Picnics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25779742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xenamorph/pseuds/Xenamorph
Summary: After all of the events that transpired, it was time for them to take a vacation.
Series: After the War [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1867282
Kudos: 1





	Sky

Flying on the Aeroships of Empyera had been a good memory, if darkened slightly by why exactly they had been flying. But now that Jasmine was her rightful self again, the quartet had decided to take a trip around the world. Let Jasmine see what she had been missing and what they had all missed sharing with her. And so they worked it out. Rowan's parents (grateful to have their daughter back from the horrifying journey she had undertaken in order to save her girlfriend) would pay for a round trip of the world. Calamity would organize the trip and make sure that everyone going on the trip would have something catered to them and that no one would have to do anything that they didn't want to do. Cal would be the protector, allowing them to go into the Aerial Jungles and more dangerous areas without fear, even though they had mostly saved the world with Jasmine there were still monsters there (which was a good thing, they weren't invasive they were just dangerous and what is a world without some danger?). Jasmine would be the talker, letting them get into areas and talking her way into exclusive clubs with a wink of her eye, a glimmer of her magic, and a whole lot of gold that she had gotten.

It had taken almost a year to complete, but they did it. And now they were comfortably settled in the bay of a ship, lounging on couches as they chattered amongst themselves. Rowan's parents had absolutely splurged, getting them a private Aeroship with a glass bottomed bay so they could see the countryside pass by beneath them. Jasmine was the only one not sitting on the couches laid out in a circle, instead she had situated herself at the center of the circle. Sitting right on the glass with little fear of it breaking ("I mean, if it can resist rough landings, and all of the weight of these couches and Cal, I think it can handle me sitting right on it" she had reasoned when Rowan tried to talk her out of it), she looked down at the countryside with a little frown on her lips as she watched the rolling hills of the plains pass beneath her. 

"I can't believed I tried to destroy this place," her voice was soft and upset, fiddling slightly with one of her locs as she drummed her fingers on the glass. "It's so beautiful, and peaceful and pretty and full of _life._ Life that I wanted to stamp out, I-"

"Hey," Calamity's voice broke Jasmine out of her spiral and prompted her to look at her girlfriend, "It wasn't you, not really. We all know that, the person we fought wasn't our Jaz."

"But she _was_ , she was me, I was her. I can't just...separate us from each other because that's not how it works. I was the one who committed those crimes, Calamity, these hands-" and she holds up her dark hands, the fingertips grey with ash- "are still the hands that almost killed you."

"And these hands," Calamity slipped off of the couch to hold Jasmine's hands in her own, "Are the hands that cared for tyrants. None of us are clean, Jasmine, but we have all come so very far from what we were." Calamity's softly scaled fingers rubbed at the ash covering Jasmine's fingertips, "I cared for tyrants while they slept, Cal uses necromancy to raise up old bones and some would find that evil, Rowan's rich which is it's own type of evil-"

"Hey!" Rowan protested from her couch, tail thumping against the back of it.

"That village in Mooshu, babe," Calamity reminded, silencing her as she cupped Jasmine's cheek, "You could've killed us then, yeah, but you also could kill me right now. You could kill all of us right now, but you _won't_. And that is the difference between you and who we fought. _You_ would never hurt us, not willingly and not fatally and not on purpose. _She_ wouldn't have cared. Just because these hands were the ones that hurt, doesn't mean you can't use them to heal."

Jasmine tilted her head into the hand cupping her cheek, "You always use so many metaphors, Calamity, did you get all of them from Wu or are you just naturally like this." Her voice was gently teasing, and she turned her head to press a kiss into Calamity's palm. 

There was silence over the group, the only sounds being the rumble of the engines and the rumble that accompanied Cal everywhere. Jasmine and Calamity were both fixated on the rolling hills passing beneath them, silently nudging each other every time one of the blue oxen were in view. Rowan fiddled with her charm necklace (without activating it) as she stared up at the industrial style ceiling, being so very reminded of the factories of her home in Marleybone. Cal was working on a small project, adding a few metallic taps and chimes as they used their fingers as small hammers and chisels to better shape the metal. But it was a peaceful sort of quiet before Rowan piped up.

"We should go outside, up on the deck, I mean." A light squeeze of her charm got Rowan in her human form, a light skinned woman with spiked red hair. "It can be like a picnic, we can get a little blanket and some food in a basket. Oh we had picnics all the time in Marleybone!" She laughed slightly as she bounced out of her seat, moving towards their still unpacked bags to replace her adventuring robe with a flowing skirt and a sleeveless top. 

Jasmine let out a soft laugh at her girlfriend's enthusiasm, drumming slightly at her knees and causing sparks. "Okay, okay we can have a picnic, but Calamity has to be the one to ask the kitchen for the food. It's impossible for people to not get sweet on you when you ask for things." Her hand raised to pat at her girlfriend's cheek as she stood up. "Cal, you in for a picnic."

"I do not eat, but okay, that sounds nice," Wrapping their project up in a small scrap of fabric, Cal slipped it into their pocket as they stood up. Their panthera, Milo, jumping up from his spot on the ground to pounce into the small gap in Cal's chest. Wriggling his way around in there until just his head was poking out of the side of Cal's open side tee.

"Milo can have your share of the food," Calamity laughed slightly as she pulled herself up off the ground with Jasmine's hand, "I'll talk to the chefs, Cal and Jaz you get the blankets and I guess Rowan you can go make sure we're allowed to do it, okay?" Calamity stretched her arms over her head, cracking her back as she did so. After the three of them nodded, Calamity sent finger guns their way and moved to make her way throughout the Aeroship.

People nodded and waved, smiling at her and calling her Hero and Champion and Savior. So many titles that she barely felt that she had earned, but in a technical sense she had. She had defeated Malestaire, and Moraganthe, and Jasmine (but she _saved_ Jasmine, not defeated, there's a very large difference). But it had been a year since Jordan was truly evil and things had seem to become more mellow. Less praise and attention and more just acknowledgment and smiles, which is what Calamity preferred. 

The ship was a little confusing, large and maze like, but after a few requests for help, Calamity found herself knocking on the swinging doors of the kitchen. Two minutes went by with no answer and Calamity gently pushed it open, seeing that it was much too loud and chaotic for anyone to have actually heard her knocking. She stepped inside, making sure to avoid being in anyone's way as she moved to the head chef and tapped her shoulder.

The woman whirled around with a large cleaver and Calamity just barely stepped out of the way with, and she had a slight permanent scowl on her face, "Ma'am I appreciate you for everything you've done but I can't believe you're still alive if you do this."

Calamity frowned slightly, shifting slightly back, "I'm really sorry, Miss, I just wanted to know if my partners and I could have a picnic up on the upper deck. You see, my girlfriend is only just getting back on her feet, it's been rather hard for her, coming out of the shadows and all, and I wanted her to enjoy the sun on her cheeks. You understand, right?" 

The chef sighed, brushing past Calamity in order to slam her cleaver into it's block, "Finger foods only, the basket'll be ready in a hour. Wait _outside_ ," She stressed the last word as she pointed at the swinging doors, "We don't need a hero getting killed due to a kitchen accident." 

"Aye-aye ma'am! Thank you so much for this!" Calamity beamed as she swept out of the kitchen, sitting on one of the stools at the bar. She took a puzzle box out of her pocket, fiddling with it as she worked to try to open it. Cal had locked away her armband inside of it as revenge for a prank she had pulled, and trying to solve it had consumed her free time in the past week. 

As Calamity struggled to solve the puzzle, Rowan had her own puzzle to solve. That being: trying to convince the ship captain to let them up on the deck in order to have the picnic.

"Oh Captain Ka'alya, please just let us sit up here! Calamity's already working on getting the food, you wouldn't want your chef to waste food now would you?" She simpered, pouting out her bottom lip. Rowan was still in her disguise, and her hands toyed with her skirt as she followed after the Alphoi captain.

"For the last time, Mythhunter, we run a tight ship around here and we can't just take time out of our schedule so you and your partners can picnic like this is some vacation. Vacation for you it may be, but for us this is life!" Ka'alya was a tall, imposing figure. A long overcoat covering up standard captain's garb and knee high boots that were just barely scuffed. 

"We'll stay out of your way, we promise! We just need a little section and we'll take care of the rest." Rowan's brain jumped around from every option she could use to apply a little pressure. Everything from 'my parents will hear about this' to 'I'll turn you into a toad' flashed across her mind, but she landed on the perfect suggestion. Rowan let her expression shift into a disappointed frown, "But...if it's really that inconvenient, that's fine. We just wanted to make sure Jasmine spent a lot of time out in the sun, after all of that shadow nonsense. But it's okay, we'll just picnic in the dark bay area."

Ka'alya's face went a strange mixture of pale and flushed, and her eyes went wide, "What- oh- oh blasted, fine! You can have your picnic but have it by the side of the rails. That gives that...shadow recoverer enough sunlight and keeps you out of the way of my crew." She huffed and tugged on the straps of her side pouch, "And don't be treating my crew like they're your servants now, y'hear? Keep out of their way and they'll all keep out of yours."

Rowan didn't have to fake her glee as she bounced on the balls of her feet, "Oh! Yes Captain Ka'alya! Thank you so much!" She smiled and gave a little wave as she bounded away. The second she was out of eyesight, her enthusiasm drained to relaxation and smugness. A jaunty little bob of her head as she skipped to where she knew Jasmine and Cal were working on acquiring a comfortable blanket.

And she was right, they were just where she expected: the bedrooms. They had splurged a little and got four beds in one room. Jasmine was rummaging in the closet while Cal sat on their bed, still fiddling with that project of theirs. Just before Rowan was about to announce her presence, Jasmine poked her head out, grinning wildly. "Got it! Got the best one!"

"Oh yeah? And what makes that the best one?" Rowan's voice was gentle and teasing as she made her way to sit next to Cal on the bed.

"It's soft enough to cover up the hard wood of the deck, tightly woven so that it doesn't bug your delicate little legs, and it's not padded in order to to make sure none of Cal's hard edges get caught on it and rip it up. After all, this stuff doesn't belong to us and as grateful as they are that their daughter isn't dead, I doubt that your parents are going to be super happy about paying for expensive Empyrean blankets."

Rowan hummed, nodding her head as she leaned against Cal, "True, true, I know the last time I racket up extra expensive on his card, my papa was so very angry. And I don't think that he'd be exactly enthused about a repeat."

Cal huffed, rolling their eyes, "You are ridiculous, I will not get caught on anything." Though, that didn't really click with the amount of times they've had to rebuy comforters for their bed after a wrong move made their joints rip a hole in the blanket and their weight made feathers fly everywhere.

Jasmine gave a disbelieving hum as she shook her head, not answering that but making her skepticism clear. She bundled the blanket in her arms as she glanced at Rowan, "Since you're here and not like- pouting and whining about it, I'm guessing the Captain gave you permission for us to have that picnic, right?"

"Right! We just have to stay out of the crew's way and she gave me specific instructions to not treat the crew like they're my servants, whatever that means!" She flicked her hand in the air, a little bit of magic coming off of her fingertips and forming into a palm sized construct, "Oh- shoot, Cal, will you be a dear and drain it?" 

Cal sighed, but moved to grab the small wooden thing in their hands, "You have to be more careful with your conjuring, Rowan," They chided as they extracted the animus from the construct and slipped it into their engine. Cal wasn't entirely on soul energy, a good deal of their animation came from the knowledge crystal that their soul was stored away in, but extra animus was always helpful. It was one of the reasons why they chose death as a school. "Just because I can extract it now, doesn't mean that I will always be there."

"Oh yes, I can imagine your obituary in the papers now, babe!" Jasmine teased as she jostled Rowan with her shoulder, jerking her head to get them to follow her as she made her way up the steps to the deck, "Rowan Mythhunter: Crushed to death under thousands of tiny constructs."

Cal let out a laugh, rough and purring from their mechanics and they reached to squeeze Rowan's shoulder, "Don't worry, I will try to be there as often as I can. I cannot have my girlfriend be crushed to death under tiny little things, now can I?"

"No, you can't. In fact I think that's almost treason for a partner to allow their girlfriend to be crushed to death by her own creations, you would be tried in a court of law and everyone would find you guilty." Rowan sniffed slightly as they made their way up into the sun, and she turned her head and smiled, "Oh, Calamity! We're over here!" She waved her arm to make her girlfriend see her.

Calamity lit up upon seeing her and made her way over, dodging out of the way of a few of the Alphoi crew members as she rejoined her girlfriends, "Oh! Hey, the food will be done in a little and it'll be delivered right up here. The head chef was so nice and she said it'll be no problem!" She beamed at them and Rowan slowly started to usher them towards the side.

"Okay, okay, that's great and all but Captain Ka'alya is going to be so pissed if we don't get out of the way of her crew members, she like really stressed that when she was giving me permission so c'mon!" She gave a little laugh as she moved the quartet to the side with large gestures that almost hit a few of the crew members in the face. "Okay, Jaz, do you mind setting up the blanket?"

"Not at all, darling," She smiled at her as she began to fan out the blanket and once she was done they all cuddled together in order to stay out of the way. 

Cal had Jasmine's head pillowed in her lap, their metal fingers gently running through her locs as they listened to the conversation going on. Or well, they just listened to Calamity complain about how she couldn't get the armband out of the puzzle box and how it was so unfair for Cal to just lock away her items. "What is something worth if you do not work for it?"

Calamity paused at that, a little purse tugging her plump lips downward, "It's worth a lot of things because it's a really expensive armband and it's really important to me because it's one of the last things I have from my original parents." She simpered slightly, blinking her eyes fast in what may look like an attempt to not cry, but what Cal knew was just her way of making her eyes wider and shinier.

"That is a lie, you have so many things from your parents that you stole from the Marleybone Museum, do not insult my intelligence." Cal rolled their eyes, leaning back on their hand as the other one continued to play with Jasmine's locs, "Besides, now it will feel so much better on your arm now that you know you worked for it. You are welcome."

"I'm not thanking you for that," Calamity snickered, tossing her cornrows over her shoulder, 

"She's going to be absolutely unbearable whenever she actually figures it out, won't she?" Rowan arched her eyebrow at Cal, even as she leaned against Calamity's shoulder.

"Oh most definitely, but we will all have to deal with her blabbering on as we always have. Because we are good partners." Cal grinned and patted slightly at Jasmine's forehead, "Do you have anything to add to the conversation, lovely?"

"Mhmm..." Jasmine hummed out, stretching slightly as she wriggled in her spot, "No, I don't. Go back to petting my hair." She bumped her head up against Cal's palm, making sure that none of her hair was caught on her joints.

"You are a very demanding woman, you know that right Nightflame?" They sighed, but returned to gently playing with her hair. The conversation lulled from there, the quartet a little too relaxed and drained from what had transpired to really engage in complex conversation. Jasmine fell asleep with Cal's mechanical and steady attention, and she remained asleep until the chef sent one of her workers up to deliver the basket of food.

They all shifted up, resting against the railing of the Aeroship as they began to snack. Calamity occasionally still fiddling with the puzzle box (that all the rest of them refused to help her with, all saying that she would have to do it herself) as she snacked on the small finger sandwiches that had been brought up. She stayed out of the conversations mostly, talking with herself as she failed again and again to unlock the box. The sliding pieces getting lodged together to create another lock for her to undo.

Rowan was making some improvements to her version of the wooden construct spell, checking over the notes that Baba Yaga had suggested in order to customize them all at a base level so that they wouldn't be the same as every other conjurer's. Customization was hard, especially since Rowan wanted said customization to last across all separate summonings of the constructs. While using them for battle was no longer viable if she wanted to be successful in that battle, wooden constructs were still useful in every day life. Especially around the house when Rowan was expected to complete her chores, she often just took the easy way out and allowed her minions to take care of the dirty work for her. Currently her minion was only changed from wood oak to redwood, but she was rather proud of that.

Cal had returned to fiddling with their project, which was now taking shape. It was another puzzle box, this one a little bit larger and instead going to be solvable using little weights instead of the interlocking shapes that Calamity's armband was trapped in. It was taking a good deal of time to properly measure out the weights and ensure that the box itself wouldn't be destroyed or cramped by them, but they were getting there. The box itself was made out of repurposed scrap metal, leaving it discolored in certain spots and slightly pockmarked in others. But it served it's purpose and it took out some weight from their reagents bag. The weights had yet to be properly constructed, but there were the base shapes of them. Cal was planning on including a little piece of astral shard in each of them to add a touch of character and glow.

Jasmine had spread out on the rest of the blanket, her heavy cloak off and pillowed underneath her head. The sun's warm rays beating down on her as she soaked it up. The sun had been a foreign thing to her when she was shadow-touched, even when she walked in public the sun had never reached her, it had always stayed just out of reach. So now that she was back in her correct mind, Jasmine knew the actual use of sunlight. Of the feeling of getting warmed and feeling so very complete with people around her. Even the little grunts and groans that Calamity was emitting every few seconds wasn't enough to break the enjoyment that she had found herself basking in. 

She knew that the shadow would never truly leave her, but that was okay. She wouldn't want it to leave her, she needed to have those memories of what she did otherwise she would risk falling back into that same trap of ego and pride again. It hurt, yes it hurt so very badly to think on how many people that she hurt, about why her dark skin had ink black tendrils creeping across it, why her fingertips would never be just ash covered again. But that was fine. Some scars are for the greater good, and sometimes scars are necessary in order for memories to truly impact people. 

"Do you think I should do a tour of the Spiral to make up for what I've done?" The sentence is the first thing that's been spoken in a good while, so it makes Rowan jump. At the questioning glances, Jasmine continues with a slight shrug as she rose up to be sitting. "I'm just saying- and no Cal I'm not beating myself up about it still I promise- I did a lot of damage. I can't remember a lot of things but I know I razed a few villages at least. I think I should just...help out. Do some reparations in order to do some material good for the hurt that I've caused. And yeah I'm not saying I'll do it alone, if you guys want to come you can but I'm not forcing any of you to."

"No no, I will help. I have always wanted to see the Spiral, but please darling. We should fix ourselves before we try to fix anything else. We will need money, supplies, connections, all of that. And we do not truly have that, except maybe connections. We have easily a good couple hundred thousand or more gold all just stored up in the gear and reagents we have. Maybe we could go to the market, set up some stalls and sell the things we've collected. It would certainly do us some good to clean out the basement and the attic. We have so many things cluttering it up and collecting dust. We really need to get better about selling the things we no longer use or do not want or cannot use!" Cal threw one hand up in the air, sighing slightly, "Do any of you have astral shards on hand?"

Rowan silently passed them a large chunk of astral shard for them to knock apart and divvy into the weights and counterweights. "I don't really agree with Cal, I really like that we have so many things! They're all like little time capsules and memories!"

"What about that ring that shocks you every time you touch it?" Cal rolled their eyes slightly as they broke off a shard and slipped it into the weight. A few taps of their fingers got the little bars of the weight cage closed and they smiled slightly, quick silver dancing across their face.

"That's another memory! We can't get rid of that stuff! But I know we have a lot of unused reagents that we could never really use! Maybe we could have a market stall to sell those! I can help price everything, I have an in at the Bazaar so we can get real competitive about it. Plus, Sorcerers are always coming after the newest reagents, and we've been to so many worlds that people haven't that they'll be crawling for us!" Rowan smiled, bouncing slightly as she sat. "Ohh, c'mon Jaz, we can even send the money we make to the places you accidentally destroyed! That way you can feel good about selling things!"

Jasmine winced at the continuous reminder, wondering to herself if this was really a good thing to share with her partners, but she continued on, "I might...take to selling my services. Like as a mercenary, like the odd jobs we used to do before we got so busy with saving the world and...destroying the world in my case. But that's some material good, I could use my power to drive away spiders, or undead, or really just anything that had been stirred up by the amount of evil magic users plaguing the spiral. There's never going to be a lack of a need for people to do things, and I'm a pretty hardy woman, I bet I could do some real good." Jasmine grinned at the group as she flexed her arms.

Calamity laughed and moved to hang slightly on Jasmine's arm, squeezing slightly at her muscles. "Oh you could do a whole lot of good with these guns of yours, and...I like this idea. I have many treasure cards that I do not use, I could sell those! After all, with those towers opening up on and off, people are very in need of treasure cards. I bet I could make a pretty good amount of money just selling the cards." 

Rowan beamed, bouncing slightly, "Oooh, we should get a group of stalls together, maybe four of them? That way we can each tailor our specific stall to what we want to sell. I can sell all of our spare reagents, Calamity can handle the treasure cards- and yeah don't worry about that I know I have so many spare cards that I'll never use just because there's no reason for me to!-, Jasmine can be her mercenary service and Cal can fight me to try to sell everything that we have!"

"It is not everything we have, it is just everything that we will never use again and there is nothing to be made of it." Cal reasoned, working open another cage for the weight, "We will never make use of anything tailored to a storm wizard, or a balance wizard, or an ice wizard. There is no reason for us to keep those rare items to ourselves when we can sell those items and make sure that others who need them get them. I am merely making sure that everyone has what they need and no one has what they don't. Yes there are memories but I believe that people are more important. Plus we do not have the space to keep all of these things, we are always finding new things that catch our eyes, why should we ever keep things that we cannot use?"

"Because of what it reminds us of! Everything has a memory attached, why would you ever want to throw away the memories!" Rowan pouted, shoulders slumping slightly as she looked at Cal. "You're just emotionless."

"It comes with the metal heart," Cal grinned, face shifting into the known preset for 'mischief', "But please, you have memory banks like I do, you do not need to keep the items in order to keep the memories. And even if _you_ did, I do not, and I can tell you exactly what story you're trying to recall."

"It's not the same!" Rowan protested, frowning slightly. Above the heads of their bickering partners, Calamity and Jasmine grinned at each other as they let the two argue out. 

Five minutes into the continued hoard vs sell argument, Jasmine got up and moved to a part of the railing further away. She rested her forearms on the railing as she looked out at the passing hills. The small dots that were blue oxen grazing and living down on the Aero Fields. She stiffened slightly as she heard footsteps approach her, but a warm hand on her back got her relaxing again, "Couldn't handle the lovebirds fighting?"

"Gods no, they could go forever if we let them. I saw you were all by your loneliness, and I was worried you were getting inside of that big beautiful brain of yours." Calamity let her hand rest on Jasmine's back as she gazed at her, "You're really alright? I know you said you weren't beating yourself up about it, but you and I both know you're a very good liar."

"I'm sure, babe, don't worry yourself over me. I'm fine, I've made...somewhat of a peace with what I did. I just want to move forward, and I know that I can't really do that in any healthy way without at least trying to repair what I've done. I'm not a bad person, but I've done bad things. And I know that, and I know that just because I was corrupted, doesn't mean I should run myself into the ground with work in an effort to repair things. I just...I can't do _nothing_ , those were innocent people's who's lives I thoroughly messed up."

Calamity was silent in a reassuring way, and she rested her forearms next to Jasmine's so that they were shoulder to shoulder. They stayed like that for a bit, all silent and thoughtful as they gazed down at the rolling hills, until Calamity broke the silence. "Do you ever think about the people we couldn't help?"

"Are you thinking about Azteca?"

"No, I mean like, well yeah of course I'm thinking about Azteca, we failed an entire planet, but I mean like. The little things. How we didn't stop to get that lady's bag back from the purse snatchers, or how we didn't bother to retrieve those books for Marleybone, or how we didn't get that salve for the man? The little things, the things that failed individual people because we prioritized this idea of a big picture quest. Do you think about them?"

"No, not really, but it sounds like you've been thinking on it a lot, Calamity." Jasmine's voice was soft as she turned her head to look at her, noticing how stalwart her gaze was on the horizon, how Calamity didn't even try to turn her head to meet Jasmine's gaze. "Talk to me, babe, tell me about your thoughts."

"Are you sure you want to hear them? They're kind of a downer and you looked really peaceful before, if it's a good day for you, I don't want to be the tipping point that makes it bad."

"You're never going to be the thing that makes my day bad, darling, so tell me. Unleash all of your angst and worries upon me."

Calamity let a little chuckle leave her lips, shaking her head slowly, "You're...ridiculous. But fine. If you insisit. I just...I feel _bad_ about it. Because with all of this free time we have now I just think back and wonder if we really had to leave so many people in the dust. If we had to prioritize everything that we did, or if we could've helped people. And...I dunno, I don't know how to rectify that but I guess the best idea is for us to do what we talked about. Make those stalls and make some money in order to help people. Nothing really helps better than straight up cash, I know that well enough, but it's so much less personal."

"You're a healer, darling, you can help people. Go to hospitals and help doctors there cure people. They always need more hands on deck, there's never going to be a lack of sick people. If you put your mind to it, I bet you could make a fantastic cure to some horrible disease. Something that will last so much longer than all of us."

"A healer, huh? I think I might like that." Calamity hummed, shoulders slumping as she looked down at the hills, "I think I'd get bored healing, and I know that sounds bad but hear me out. I like the action that our lives have been filled with. I like the time limit and I like the feeling of adrenaline rushing in my veins as we save yet another world. Of course I don't want people to get hurt and I don't want everyone to be in danger just because I'm an adrenaline junkie but..." She trailed off, giving a little shrug as she picked at her cuticles.

"But you just want that adrenaline. You want to have the feeling of doing something important that has immediate good affects that you can see right away and immedietely get credit for. You want people to know your name while you're still alive, that's not a bad thing. You just want to be known, and that's fine. Honestly I doubt you'll have any trouble being known with what you've already done," Jasmine counted off on her fingers, "Saved the world from Malestaire, saved the world from Morganthe, saved the world from _me_ , saved Krok from your weird dead relatives, saved Wizard City from Nightshade and also helped save the streets so that people could still live there. Uh, lemme think, we healed the Emperor of Mooshu, we defeated Meowiarty, we helped a good deal of souls find peace in Dragonspyre, we did some work in Celestia to help researchers. We worked to solve some gang issues in Mirage, we defeated agents of the Cabal in Wizard City! And so much more! We are heroes, you are a hero and you're going to be known, just like your parents but better. You're going to be _famous_ , not infamous."

Calamity felt a little smile quirk her lips up and she chuckled slightly, "You should record those motivation speeches, they really work. You could make a good deal of bank."

Jasmine laughed, more than it really deserved but it was out of relief, "Maybe it'll be one of the things that I sell at the stand, y'know? Thirty gold an hour, have the famed hero turned villain turned hero motivate you! Rave reviews from all of her partners please trust them they're totally unbiased!" She said in a grand, if soft as to not disturb the crew working around them, voice, arms raised and hands clasped into fists.

She laughed, moving to interlock her hand with Jasmine's, "Exactly, you'll be making the most money out of any of us, babe. I think the stall thing is a good idea, but if I get too bored selling trinkets, then I'm going right in next to you for the mercenary work."

Scoffing, Jasmine held her hand against her chest. Widening her eyes and letting her mouth hang agape before scoffing again and saying, "My own girlfriend would filch my customers out from under me? How rude! I'm going to tell the others!" She grinned, moving to dart past her before Calamity's hand shot out and grabbed her arm.

"Hey, no running on the deck. We don't need you and a crew member colliding and us having to spend the rest of our vacation stopping in on you in the infirmary with a concussion because the crew member dropped a beam on your head." A huff left her lips as she squeezed her hand, "We can walk over there, nice and slow and together, and then you can tell the other two about my horrible betrayal."

"You are a cruel, cruel woman, you know that right?" Jasmine hummed out, tugging Calamity a little rougher than necessary (but no rougher than play) towards the blanket were Rowan and Cal were still arguing about sentiment versus functionality. "Hey guys, we decided we're all on for the stalls right?" She grinned, wide and bright as she sat down with Calamity.

"Oooh! Let me call us in so we can reserve the spots!" Rowan jumped up before anyone could tell her not to, and she sped away.

Shaking her head, Calamity looked at the picnic basket and blanket, "Y'know, maybe Rowan was right. Picnics are really fun."


End file.
